Donald Trump’s son-in-law was accepted into the Ivy League university in the wake of a $2.5m pledge made by his parents

Friday 18 November 2016 13.00

I would like to express my gratitude to Jared Kushner for reviving interest in my 2006 book, The Price of Admission. …

My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations. It reported that New Jersey real estate developer Charles Kushner had pledged $2.5m to Harvard University not long before his son Jared was admitted to the prestigious Ivy League school, which at the time accepted about one of every nine applicants. (Nowadays, it only takes one out of 20.)

I also quoted administrators at Jared’s high school, who described him as a less-than-stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard’s decision.

“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,’’ a former official at the Frisch school in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA [grade point average] did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought, for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.’’ …

This anecdote from the late 1990s matches it up with what I later heard about the current Harvard Number as of 2010. I blogged:

The Harvard Number is the amount of money Harvard would want as a donation for accepting your kid as an undergraduate. It’s not the kind of information they post on their website. You have to ask the right people in the right manner.

He said he just found out that the current Harvard Number — assuming your kid’s application was “competitive” (i.e., there’s some chance your kid would get in even if you didn’t write a check) — is $5 million.

If your kid’s “not competitive,” then it is $10 million.

If there are about 1,800 freshmen at Harvard each year, then Harvard could admit, say, 100 competitive applicants whose fathers (typically, hedge fund guys) write the Harvard Number on a check — without tangibly lowering the quality of the class. That’s, theoretically, a half billion per year in virtually free money. How could an institution resist that temptation?

Quid pro quo arrangements aren’t supposed to be tax deductible as charity, but how often does the IRS get the goods on this? In practice, a big chunk of the Harvard Number gets refunded by the taxpayers.

My confidant, an old Harvard man, was disgusted by how expensive the Harvard Number had gotten: “Hedge fund guys ruin it for everybody.”

More from Daniel Golden:

Charles Kushner differed from his peers on the committee in another way: he had a criminal record. Five years after Jared entered Harvard, the elder Kushner pleaded guilty in 2004 to tax violations, illegal campaign donations and retaliating against a witness. (As it happens, the prosecutor in the case was Chris Christie, recently ousted as the head of Trump’s transition team.) Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister. He was sentenced to two years in federal prison.

During last year’s campaign when everybody was going on and on about how different the candidates were, I kept getting the Clintons and Trumps confused. They belong to the same country club, their inlaws were convicted of similar crimes …

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Having grown up in middle-class suburbia, I find it genuinely disconcerting just how grasping and greedy our elites are. Heaven forbid that Harvard get by on a measly few tens of billions, and use its name recognition to attract the absolute best and brightest across the country, to create a meritocractic and noble aristocracy for America. No, you can’t let Yale or Stanford or Chicago get the jump on you; you gotta let the hedge fund kids buy their way in over the 1600-SAT starting linebacker from Ypsilanti who runs the local Young Life. No one who matters will even notice the difference, and here we are getting fatter, dumber, happier.

Yeah, exactly. Although I’m sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

Lots of wealthy financiers and businessmen probably have bribed their child's way into an Ivy League education. So I assume a lot of elite journalists understood not to touch that issue. If you're an elite journalist that wants to stay an elite journalist, you have to be careful to not step on the toes of powerful people. If a journalist brought up the Kushner bribery issue, they'd risk getting all these oligarchs into the media spotlight.

Also, maybe a lot of insiders knew that Kushner was a globalist cuck. So they figured that if Trump somehow got elected, Kushner could push out the Alt-Right/nationalist types. However, if Kushner was politically damaged by this revelation and Trump still somehow got elected, Kushner would be too weak to have any leverage.

I went to a good high school in Mass. and in my senior year 12 students were admitted to Harvard. Of those kids, probably only a handful deserved to be there.

For instance, one of the kids had a father and a sister who were alumni . His father worked in an important position at a major insurance company, so I'm sure the dad donated money, although not Charles Kushner money. They were neighbors on Martha's vineyard with the Harvard application reader for our area, and so I think there was an unofficial assurance that he would get in. He wasn't a terrible student, but he would probably be going to Bates, or something, if not for this.

There were also the cases of professors whose children sort of regressed to the mean. Once again, not terrible students, but then again certainly not Harvard material either.

Also, there were affirmative action admits. The kids who got in via affirmative action were worse students than the kids listed above. I would say affirmative Action was worth about 300 SAT points (on a 2400 point scale) whereas the kids above probably got like 150 points (this is all very rough guesstimation). In any case one of the girls who got in through affirmative action had a white mother, and had parents who made a lot of money. The other girl was hispanic, poor, and earnest, but not especially bright.

Although I’m sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years...

No doubt about it. It's just another racket. And it ain't exactly news, either.

Benjamin Franklin attended school for two years, and his schooling ended when he was ten. This is Ben Franklin (as Silence Dogood) at age 16 :

“…I reflected in my Mind on the extreme Folly of those Parents, who, blind to their Childrens Dullness, and insensible of the Solidity of their Skulls, because they think their Purses can afford it, will need send them to the Temple of Learning, where, for want of a suitable Genius, they learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a Room genteely, (which might as well be acquir’d at a Dancing-School,) and from whence they return, after Abundance of Trouble and Charge, as great Blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited.

…[and] he, without much Study, presently interpreted it, assuring me, That it was a lively Representation of HARVARD COLLEGE, Etcetera. I remain, Sir, Your Humble Servant,

I saw the Journolist clique passing it around and loving it, but true, not the elite guys.

I *really* think that when Brad Parscale said Jared Kushner was important to his data operation, the biggest unsung success story of the election, he was probably not telling the entire truth. Just flattering of the boss's son-in-law? I thought it a little strange when that big story came out about Kushner that Parscale was given little credit; too inconvenient for the narrative, I guess.

But, though many factors elected Trump, Brad Parscale is one piece, that, if you removed him, Trump would have lost.

JW123 has it. Namely, peeling back the onion layers on Harvard admits would expose too many others for questionable admission. Inconvenient questions are those that few want answered. What you don't know won't hurt you.

And really, who's surprised that money eases the way for some? It's present in virtually all walks of life. Only the naïve see life as pristine from the influence of money.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

“But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.”

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are also seen as the “good faction” within the Trump team. It’s guys like Steve Bannon they loathe.

‘Hedge fund guys.’ My brother-in-law has run two small hedge funds broke over the last two decades, while managing to live rather well. And in that business, he’s quite a small potatoes goy with no family connections; just a former theoretical physicist with a sincere, no doubt naive, belief in what your Takimag colleague Scott Locklin used to call “quantitative finance.”

Imagine how Kushner père et famille can live on your money.

Say, whatever happened to Scott Locklin? Used to be a burgeoning figure on the ‘Dissident Lite.’ I always wondered whether he ran a fund or two into the ground. Or maybe prospective employers weren’t keen on his political expressions.

An unemployed Princeton grad killed his father when pops threatened to decrease son's allowance. Turns out the 70 year-old hedge fund manager was only worth $1.6 million -- probably not even enough to retire and maintain his current lifestyle.

Martin Shkreli decided to go into pharmaceuticals because there wasn't enough money in hedge funds.

Kushner was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family in New Jersey.[18] He graduated from the Frisch School, a private, coed yeshiva high school, in 1999.

His father spent two years in prison for tax evasion, illegal donations, and witness tampering.

His father, Charles Kushner, was arrested on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations, and witness tampering in 2004, and was eventually convicted on all charges (by the then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie)[30] and sentenced to two years in federal prison.[

President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Syria with missile strikes was apparently executed over Bannon’s strenuous objections, according to a report by New York Magazine. Bannon’s reasoning was that the missile strikes violated Trump’s America First ideology, while his ideological foe in the White House — Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — insisted they were necessary as a response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people.

The Kushner-Bannon fight is about ideology. Kushner is a globalist, while Bannon is an Alt-Right nationalist.

While Bannon’s office contains a board that lists what he believes represent Trump’s core populist promises, Kushner has pushed against them with a centrist perspective that has caused Bannon to call him a “Democrat.” (Kushner has indeed given a great deal of money to Democrats and has in the past expressed admiration for presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.)

That caption has me cracking up more than it should. Something tells me it’s more than a mere 100 spots set aside. 5 million dollars seems relatively affordable for the mega-wealthy across the world. And what about spots set aside for politicians’ children? I doubt Malia got in on her merits.

Lets put it this way, if you have CNN, Merkel, neocons, McCain, Salon, The Guardian, Hollande, etc, supporting his actions then you should ask why you are supporting him ? If he is that weak willed and that unrestrained that some dead children propaganda works that easy on him, then why shouldn't that drowned child propaganda (that so easily worked on Merkel) not make him let in all the refugees ?

Apparently he meant nothing that he promised while he was running for office. The only question now is whether there will be another election in 4 years or will he follow in the footsteps of the Emperor Augustus and create a hereditary monarchy with lifetime tenure?

While the Syria thing makes me cringe, there's a reasonable chance it will not lead to any escalated actions in Syria. It may actually make it easier for Trump to do his job, because he's changing the story, getting some positive comments from some severe critics, putting to rest the idiot Russia narrative, and generally, to many people, looking every bit the President.

Of course I continue to be baffled as to why he did this thing in Syria to begin with.

Trump blew up bits and pieces of a old airbase which got the Neo-Con's off his back and sent a message to that fat dwarf in NK and let the Chinese know he doesn't screw around. Oddly enough no one is talking about the second base supposedly bombed. The Russians report only half of the SLCM's reached their target.

This is weird, even RT doesn't mention the second air base.

Then he has Tillerson put on a show verbal slapping the Russians. Shutting up the Democrats.

Which is all fine provided he goes no further. If he escalates, he seals his fate.

Of course when you play real politik like that, especially when you run on a platform of putting America first, Trump is risking turning his base against him.

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia "scandal." If Bannon is no longer there, then there won't be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

As for Stephen Miller, there are those who want him out too. Joe Scarborough (who talks to Trump pretty often) hates Miller and has really torn into him. It's unusual to see a speechwriter get hit so hard, but Scarborough doesn't want him in the Trump administration. Sessions brought Miller to DC with him, but what happens if Sessions and Bannon are gone.

Even the Washington Post is surprised by how much Scarborough hates Miller.

There are also a lot of stories about how a lot of original Trump backers are getting frozen out of White House jobs, which are now going to Republican establishment types and New York globalists (such as Goldman Sachs exec Gary Cohn).

Re Miller, let's face it: the Kushner issue does raise the old spectre again, as it should. Most of us worried about it; now most of us are vindicated.

So where does Miller stand? On the one hand, we have to suspect he was the main VDare reader in the group who got the Sailer Strategy through to Trump in the first place, presumably with cred from Sessions. OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

Re the old spectre: this may even turn out to be a great tactical victory for Trump, allowing him to do things, thanks to 59 missiles and some unfortunate dead in Syria, that would otherwise have bogged him down forever. But that wouldn't change the fact that the mask is off: it's clear Kushner is a globalist stooge who is trying to derail the essence of electoral Trumpism, which is populist nationalism. As personified in Bannon.

“My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations.”

What do you mean, “grubby secret”? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard. The 15 percent of kids who get in because of how smart they are, are just interviewing for jobs with the firms the sons will one day run.

What do you mean, “grubby secret”? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard.

What I've been wondering is if a big part of the purpose of these top schools now is to introduce the scions of the global elite to each other, and if that's the reason for admitting so many international students.

Whatever the level of intellectual achievement a kid demonstrated in his studies by the age of 17 is only a rough guide to what ability he might show by the age of 35.

While Jesus was–it is claimed–stunning the temple elders with his wit and wisdom at the age of 12, Charles Darwin was a late-developing son of a wealthy family who dropped out of medical school. He then enrolled in a Bachelor’s degee at the University of Cambridge, where he preferred riding and shooting to studying, and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley’s Evidences of Christianity.

Both had careers that changed the world.

Like Hillary Clinton, Kushner married well and could possibly be a future President in training. Then again, maybe not, but at this point we don’t really know what he might evolve into.

Elevating Gary Cohn to chief of staff would be a major win for the Wall Street wing of the White House.

Cohn is personally close to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, and Trump’s daughter and aide Ivanka, the White House official notes. Cohn’s status in the White House is also bolstered by Goldman Sachs veteran Dina Powell, who was effectively hired as an aid to and proxy for Ivanka and now serves on the National Security Council.

“Dina Powell is going to be a big, big person in the White House” the official said. “She can boost Cohn, and Cohn can do the same for her.”

I think that people may generally be underrating the importance of the personal in the Trump WH.

My guess is that one of Trump's real weaknesses is an inclination for nepotism. He seems entirely too eager to put family members in positions of power -- which may work in a real estate business, but is likely to backfire badly in the running of a government.

I think he has a lot of difficulty saying no to his own family, especially those, like Ivanka, upon whom he especially dotes. Jarred comes with her, of course.

I'd guess that Bannon is probably not a particularly easy character to deal with on a day to day basis. Also, he's not a worshipful sort, and Trump loves some worship.

While we (and others) may see these people in terms of what they stand for ideologically, I doubt that that's the prominent consideration in Trump's mind when he thinks about them. Frankly, if we were working with them, it's probably not their ideology that would be most prominent in our minds.

Of course I haven’t given up; I’m astounded by how many posters here are suddenly buying into the “Trump is a vain/shallow/opportunistic/idiotic/incoherent blunderer” story that’s been sold by the media ever since he announced his run for the Presidency. Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he’s a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner). Trump was talking about his signature trade and immigration issues as far back as the 1980s, long before he ever met Bannon; Bannon also didn’t come on board in his campaign until fairly late in the game. I definitely wish Trump hadn’t stuck his foot into the Syrian mess, but, unless he makes a more definite move (which God forbid), it seems to me that he’s almost certainly made this token strike merely to (1) silence the “Russian puppet” accusation, (2) forestall his enemies in both parties from claiming that his quasi-approval of Assad emboldened Assad’s alleged gas attack, and (3) throw a little scare into China, North Korea, and Iran. I don’t think he did it simply because Kushner suggested it to him, or because Ivanka started crying over pictures of gassed babies; to believe that, I’d have have to believe that he’s the mindless empty vessel that his enemies have painted him as, and he’s come too far for me to ever believe that.

If Trump’s improbable political career has shown anything, it’s that he’s not just the sum of the people around him. I remember hearing the doomsayers proclaiming that it was all over when Lewandowski was dumped for the slicker and shadier Manafort, or when Kellyanne Conway (with her dubious record on illegal immigration) came on board the campaign, and the doom didn’t come to pass. Also, Bannon hasn’t even been dumped yet; he went with Trump on Air Force One to the meeting with the Chinese, for goodness sake. In the meantime, we have Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (instead of Garland, or–gag–Obama, who might well have been put there by Hillary), we have Sessions as AG cracking down on sanctuary cities instead of Loretta Lynch strapping racism-detecting body-cams to Ferguson policemen, and we have bids being taken on the Great Border Wall. Until I see boots on the ground in Syria, I’ll continue to be far more pleased than disappointed by the outcome of the election.

Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he’s a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner).

Lets put it this way, if you have CNN, Merkel, neocons, McCain, Salon, The Guardian, Hollande, etc, supporting his actions then you should ask why you are supporting him ? If he is that weak willed and that unrestrained that some dead children propaganda works that easy on him, then why shouldn’t that drowned child propaganda (that so easily worked on Merkel) not make him let in all the refugees ?

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

other factors

Lots of wealthy financiers and businessmen probably have bribed their child’s way into an Ivy League education. So I assume a lot of elite journalists understood not to touch that issue. If you’re an elite journalist that wants to stay an elite journalist, you have to be careful to not step on the toes of powerful people. If a journalist brought up the Kushner bribery issue, they’d risk getting all these oligarchs into the media spotlight.

Also, maybe a lot of insiders knew that Kushner was a globalist cuck. So they figured that if Trump somehow got elected, Kushner could push out the Alt-Right/nationalist types. However, if Kushner was politically damaged by this revelation and Trump still somehow got elected, Kushner would be too weak to have any leverage.

As per your previous comment, everybody knows that Kushner is Jewish, that's why he's automatically assumed to have Machiavellied Trump into bombing Assad because, well, that's what Jews do. The WHOLE Kushner brouhaha is about his semitism.

And now you somehow don't get Unz's "other factors"?

You're playing me bro.

I thought the man spelled it out clearly enough - here, and in every 3rd word he's written over the past few years - but I'll help spell it out even simpler.

"I, Ronald "RKU" Unz, am not one of THOSE Jews. I am a good Jew. A Jew who finds his face, name, personality and proclivities ugly and who will OurDamnedSpot! it by spitting at every imaginary mirror he imagines passing in the shade of a fellow Hebe. I. See. Jewish. Nepotism. Everywhere. Oh, and I weep for wrongly done Palestinian youth too. Woe, unto we goyim - i said WE GOYIM - to see the sadness in the face of one rock throwing little Mooslem boy. Be still my goiyishe heart..."

I've just saved you the trouble of having to read Ron'z future comments. That'll be a dollar per post and $10 for saving you the trouble of having to purchase a sticky copy of portnoy's complaint on Amazon, now that you know that you can read Portnoy's Therapeutic Soliloquy online for free should the proverse mode strike you.

Apparently he meant nothing that he promised while he was running for office. The only question now is whether there will be another election in 4 years or will he follow in the footsteps of the Emperor Augustus and create a hereditary monarchy with lifetime tenure?

Having grown up in middle-class suburbia, I find it genuinely disconcerting just how grasping and greedy our elites are. Heaven forbid that Harvard get by on a measly few tens of billions, and use its name recognition to attract the absolute best and brightest across the country, to create a meritocractic and noble aristocracy for America. No, you can't let Yale or Stanford or Chicago get the jump on you; you gotta let the hedge fund kids buy their way in over the 1600-SAT starting linebacker from Ypsilanti who runs the local Young Life. No one who matters will even notice the difference, and here we are getting fatter, dumber, happier.

They wouldn’t be creating a meritocratic and noble aristocracy, anyway. So what’s the difference?

PC will still allow us to have a certain number engineers, for instance, so that bridges don’t fall on people’s heads every day. But they won’t allow us that.

At least we know that Kushner actually enrolled at and attended university. Probably has people who remember him from those days too which is more than we can say about Columbia man B. Obama.

Now what is it about these ‘high school administrators’ speaking anonymously about the academic achievements of Jared Kushner? Guess they are safely retired now because I could not imagine anyone in a position to know, revealing the academic record of Obama and not being ‘unmasked’ and destroyed.

That caption has me cracking up more than it should. Something tells me it's more than a mere 100 spots set aside. 5 million dollars seems relatively affordable for the mega-wealthy across the world. And what about spots set aside for politicians' children? I doubt Malia got in on her merits.

Obama and Bush both went to Harvard grad school (JD and MBA respectively).

I wonder if they got in on their merits.

In particular, how did Bush make it into a Harvard MBA? In what world does George W. Bush get into the most competitive business-school in the world?

When W applied to the HBS, admissions was not near as competitive as it is today. Last year HBS accepted 11% of its applicants.
In 1973, according to a Bloomberg article:
"Surely junior's application stood out. George W. Bush was a picture of honor once he got past his party days at Yale with the Delta Kappa Epsilon brothers and members of Skull & Bones, a secret society that enrolled him during his senior year -- so hush-hush, in fact, it barely gets a mention in his book. Bush earned an undergraduate degree in history from Yale in 1968. His grades weren't great, and nobody can seem to locate his GMAT scores. The story starts with Bush's application. "
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2001-02-14/george-w-dot-s-b-school-days

Lots of wealthy financiers and businessmen probably have bribed their child's way into an Ivy League education. So I assume a lot of elite journalists understood not to touch that issue. If you're an elite journalist that wants to stay an elite journalist, you have to be careful to not step on the toes of powerful people. If a journalist brought up the Kushner bribery issue, they'd risk getting all these oligarchs into the media spotlight.

Also, maybe a lot of insiders knew that Kushner was a globalist cuck. So they figured that if Trump somehow got elected, Kushner could push out the Alt-Right/nationalist types. However, if Kushner was politically damaged by this revelation and Trump still somehow got elected, Kushner would be too weak to have any leverage.

That caption has me cracking up more than it should. Something tells me it's more than a mere 100 spots set aside. 5 million dollars seems relatively affordable for the mega-wealthy across the world. And what about spots set aside for politicians' children? I doubt Malia got in on her merits.

If I recall correctly, Malia has to wait a year before starting at Harvard.

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia “scandal.” If Bannon is no longer there, then there won’t be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

As for Stephen Miller, there are those who want him out too. Joe Scarborough (who talks to Trump pretty often) hates Miller and has really torn into him. It’s unusual to see a speechwriter get hit so hard, but Scarborough doesn’t want him in the Trump administration. Sessions brought Miller to DC with him, but what happens if Sessions and Bannon are gone.

Even the Washington Post is surprised by how much Scarborough hates Miller.

There are also a lot of stories about how a lot of original Trump backers are getting frozen out of White House jobs, which are now going to Republican establishment types and New York globalists (such as Goldman Sachs exec Gary Cohn).

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia “scandal.” If Bannon is no longer there, then there won’t be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

Trump quite possibly owes his Presidency to Jeff Sessions. During the primary, Alabama turned out 44% for Trump - a bunch of southern baptists voted for the Yankee New Yorker who doesn't care about abortion or gay rights. Jeff Sessions endorsement probably had a lot to do with that. The deep south - against expectation - came out strong for Trump. If Trump gets rid of Sessions, he's a fool. Naturally, my desire would be for Trump to keep Sessions, Miller, and Bannon, and accord them even greater influence.

Re Miller, let’s face it: the Kushner issue does raise the old spectre again, as it should. Most of us worried about it; now most of us are vindicated.

So where does Miller stand? On the one hand, we have to suspect he was the main VDare reader in the group who got the Sailer Strategy through to Trump in the first place, presumably with cred from Sessions. OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

Re the old spectre: this may even turn out to be a great tactical victory for Trump, allowing him to do things, thanks to 59 missiles and some unfortunate dead in Syria, that would otherwise have bogged him down forever. But that wouldn’t change the fact that the mask is off: it’s clear Kushner is a globalist stooge who is trying to derail the essence of electoral Trumpism, which is populist nationalism. As personified in Bannon.

OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

How is our cause helped if Miller does not disavowing Spencer?

And it's not like Spencer was some innocent private citizen whose privacy was invaded by the media or by Miller blabbing away. Spencer chose to go public with his alleged personal relationships. The honorable thing is for public figures like Spencer to keep personal relationships private.

"My book exposed a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their underachieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations."

What do you mean, "grubby secret"? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard. The 15 percent of kids who get in because of how smart they are, are just interviewing for jobs with the firms the sons will one day run.

What do you mean, “grubby secret”? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard.

What I’ve been wondering is if a big part of the purpose of these top schools now is to introduce the scions of the global elite to each other, and if that’s the reason for admitting so many international students.

The vast endowments of the best American universities (even the "public" state schools) are now encouraging the belief that they can just cut themselves loose from their state charters and become schools for the global (money) elite. So you're right there.

America was once revered around the world; I think that feeling has been lost, as far as the wealthiest globalists are concerned. Still, the best schools are here, for now anyway, so that's where they come. I don't think that the male Chinese students who come here for math, science and engineering believe one bit of the libtard crap that is served up, for instance.

Elevating Gary Cohn to chief of staff would be a major win for the Wall Street wing of the White House.

Cohn is personally close to Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and adviser, and Trump’s daughter and aide Ivanka, the White House official notes. Cohn’s status in the White House is also bolstered by Goldman Sachs veteran Dina Powell, who was effectively hired as an aid to and proxy for Ivanka and now serves on the National Security Council.

“Dina Powell is going to be a big, big person in the White House” the official said. “She can boost Cohn, and Cohn can do the same for her.”

I think that people may generally be underrating the importance of the personal in the Trump WH.

My guess is that one of Trump’s real weaknesses is an inclination for nepotism. He seems entirely too eager to put family members in positions of power — which may work in a real estate business, but is likely to backfire badly in the running of a government.

I think he has a lot of difficulty saying no to his own family, especially those, like Ivanka, upon whom he especially dotes. Jarred comes with her, of course.

I’d guess that Bannon is probably not a particularly easy character to deal with on a day to day basis. Also, he’s not a worshipful sort, and Trump loves some worship.

While we (and others) may see these people in terms of what they stand for ideologically, I doubt that that’s the prominent consideration in Trump’s mind when he thinks about them. Frankly, if we were working with them, it’s probably not their ideology that would be most prominent in our minds.

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Compare that with the Clintons, where for all their perfidy, they had a whole mafia of loyalists.

The sense I get is that the Trumps have burned through a lot of people, and one of the recurring iSteve themes is that when strangers and friends don't trust you and you don't trust them, family is all you've got.

It’s no use. Kushner will defeat Brannon. Trump does family like a Jew, an early 20th century Italian, or an Indian. This is something generic gentiles raised in the faint echoes of a bygone wasp culture will never understand. Did anyone really think the fat guy had a chance?

Of course I haven't given up; I'm astounded by how many posters here are suddenly buying into the "Trump is a vain/shallow/opportunistic/idiotic/incoherent blunderer" story that's been sold by the media ever since he announced his run for the Presidency. Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he's a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner). Trump was talking about his signature trade and immigration issues as far back as the 1980s, long before he ever met Bannon; Bannon also didn't come on board in his campaign until fairly late in the game. I definitely wish Trump hadn't stuck his foot into the Syrian mess, but, unless he makes a more definite move (which God forbid), it seems to me that he's almost certainly made this token strike merely to (1) silence the "Russian puppet" accusation, (2) forestall his enemies in both parties from claiming that his quasi-approval of Assad emboldened Assad's alleged gas attack, and (3) throw a little scare into China, North Korea, and Iran. I don't think he did it simply because Kushner suggested it to him, or because Ivanka started crying over pictures of gassed babies; to believe that, I'd have have to believe that he's the mindless empty vessel that his enemies have painted him as, and he's come too far for me to ever believe that.

If Trump's improbable political career has shown anything, it's that he's not just the sum of the people around him. I remember hearing the doomsayers proclaiming that it was all over when Lewandowski was dumped for the slicker and shadier Manafort, or when Kellyanne Conway (with her dubious record on illegal immigration) came on board the campaign, and the doom didn't come to pass. Also, Bannon hasn't even been dumped yet; he went with Trump on Air Force One to the meeting with the Chinese, for goodness sake. In the meantime, we have Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (instead of Garland, or--gag--Obama, who might well have been put there by Hillary), we have Sessions as AG cracking down on sanctuary cities instead of Loretta Lynch strapping racism-detecting body-cams to Ferguson policemen, and we have bids being taken on the Great Border Wall. Until I see boots on the ground in Syria, I'll continue to be far more pleased than disappointed by the outcome of the election.

While the Syria thing makes me cringe, there’s a reasonable chance it will not lead to any escalated actions in Syria. It may actually make it easier for Trump to do his job, because he’s changing the story, getting some positive comments from some severe critics, putting to rest the idiot Russia narrative, and generally, to many people, looking every bit the President.

Of course I continue to be baffled as to why he did this thing in Syria to begin with.

It may actually make it easier for Trump to do his job, because he’s changing the story, getting some positive comments from some severe critics, putting to rest the idiot Russia narrative, and generally, to many people, looking every bit the President.

Let's hope the Susan Rice story is not allowed to die. It appeared something was about to blow open in the "tapped my wires" story. Please don't let Rice and company off the hook.

It's no use. Kushner will defeat Brannon. Trump does family like a Jew, an early 20th century Italian, or an Indian. This is something generic gentiles raised in the faint echoes of a bygone wasp culture will never understand. Did anyone really think the fat guy had a chance?

Is Bannon really that disgusting looking? I really don’t get all the comments about his appearance.

I think he puts enough into his appearance that it’s really rude the way people always comment on how ugly he is. And I also just don’t think he’s that bad looking.

'Hedge fund guys.' My brother-in-law has run two small hedge funds broke over the last two decades, while managing to live rather well. And in that business, he's quite a small potatoes goy with no family connections; just a former theoretical physicist with a sincere, no doubt naive, belief in what your Takimag colleague Scott Locklin used to call "quantitative finance."

Imagine how Kushner père et famille can live on your money.

Say, whatever happened to Scott Locklin? Used to be a burgeoning figure on the 'Dissident Lite.' I always wondered whether he ran a fund or two into the ground. Or maybe prospective employers weren't keen on his political expressions.

An unemployed Princeton grad killed his father when pops threatened to decrease son’s allowance. Turns out the 70 year-old hedge fund manager was only worth $1.6 million — probably not even enough to retire and maintain his current lifestyle.

Martin Shkreli decided to go into pharmaceuticals because there wasn’t enough money in hedge funds.

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia "scandal." If Bannon is no longer there, then there won't be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

As for Stephen Miller, there are those who want him out too. Joe Scarborough (who talks to Trump pretty often) hates Miller and has really torn into him. It's unusual to see a speechwriter get hit so hard, but Scarborough doesn't want him in the Trump administration. Sessions brought Miller to DC with him, but what happens if Sessions and Bannon are gone.

Even the Washington Post is surprised by how much Scarborough hates Miller.

There are also a lot of stories about how a lot of original Trump backers are getting frozen out of White House jobs, which are now going to Republican establishment types and New York globalists (such as Goldman Sachs exec Gary Cohn).

No one who takes Joe Scarborough that seriously deserves to be president.

What do you mean, “grubby secret”? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard.

What I've been wondering is if a big part of the purpose of these top schools now is to introduce the scions of the global elite to each other, and if that's the reason for admitting so many international students.

Also to indoctrinate the foreign students in…whatever it is Harvard teaches and our elites believe or pretend to believe in.

I’ve given up on Trump, his family and making his daughter and son in law happy come first before country, duty, or plain common sense.

There will be no border wall, deportations, limits on mass Third World Immigration, or anything. America is over. We will have endless and meaningless wars we are not aiming to win nor will be allowed to win. We will be over-run by half or more of the Third World because nice Blonde Ladies figure that any “REAL” White man would be just fine like her husband or father. Bannon is already fired, he just does not know it yet. Between family and the dude who creates success, its always family. Just ask Roger Ailes, who James Murdoch got rid of in his make-over of Fox News into MSNBC. Because as all upper class people, he HATES HATE HATES ordinary Whites. Because aristocratic White women always have: Marie Antoinette being exhibit A.

All that being said, the role of Harvard, Yale, etc. is to create the leadership class. When it is comprised entirely of Ziad BLM, Transgender Theys, (stabbing and non-stabbing variety), dumb rich dudes, random Third World princelings like Obama, etc. then both the ability to connect emotionally and sway the White population erodes, and the competence to find their behinds in the dark with a flashlight and map erodes to nothing.

America is not even France in its leadership class: Kushner is stupid and idiotic to think that after four years of Bush II re-runs Trump and his whole clan won’t be bounced into prison by Black King in Exile Obama and the obvious Kamala Harris Restoration. Jared Kushner’s only chance at avoiding jail just for being a Trump clan member is to motivate the base who gave Trump the narrowest of victories. Just as the only way to keep the Murdoch money machine going is to generate the free cash that ultra cheap Fox News throws off by simply not being an uber-liberal MSNBC. But James and Lachlan Murdoch are too stupid to add up the yearly debt payments for Fox (over a billion per year) and the profits from Fox News (a bit more).

We don’t have the French ENArchs who can at least add two and two and get four; we have the Austrian Archdukes because Harvard is in the business of selecting not future big shots with a smattering of able ordinary men and women; but SJW idiots, rich men’s spawn and Third World princelings.

Re Miller, let's face it: the Kushner issue does raise the old spectre again, as it should. Most of us worried about it; now most of us are vindicated.

So where does Miller stand? On the one hand, we have to suspect he was the main VDare reader in the group who got the Sailer Strategy through to Trump in the first place, presumably with cred from Sessions. OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

Re the old spectre: this may even turn out to be a great tactical victory for Trump, allowing him to do things, thanks to 59 missiles and some unfortunate dead in Syria, that would otherwise have bogged him down forever. But that wouldn't change the fact that the mask is off: it's clear Kushner is a globalist stooge who is trying to derail the essence of electoral Trumpism, which is populist nationalism. As personified in Bannon.

OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

How is our cause helped if Miller does not disavowing Spencer?

And it’s not like Spencer was some innocent private citizen whose privacy was invaded by the media or by Miller blabbing away. Spencer chose to go public with his alleged personal relationships. The honorable thing is for public figures like Spencer to keep personal relationships private.

As I'm to the right of Spencer (a position I share with thousands of activists, approximated at TheRightStuff.biz), my question would be, "how is our cause helped if Miller does not avow Spencer?

And it must come to that if America is to become great again, for it was made great as a White offshoot of Western Europe, and fell from greatness through anti-White animus, the latter instigated in no small part by Jews.

Kushner was raised in a Modern Orthodox Jewish family in New Jersey.[18] He graduated from the Frisch School, a private, coed yeshiva high school, in 1999.

His father spent two years in prison for tax evasion, illegal donations, and witness tampering.

His father, Charles Kushner, was arrested on charges of tax evasion, illegal campaign donations, and witness tampering in 2004, and was eventually convicted on all charges (by the then U.S. Attorney Chris Christie)[30] and sentenced to two years in federal prison.[

Bannon called Jared Kushner a "cuck" and a "globalist."

https://www.thejc.com/news/world/bannon-and-cuck-kushner-1.435984

According to the Daily Beast, Mr Bannon called Mr Kushner, who is Jewish, a “Cuck” and a “Globalist” - terms that carry antisemitic undertones, and are often used by the radical alt-right

President Donald Trump’s decision to attack Syria with missile strikes was apparently executed over Bannon’s strenuous objections, according to a report by New York Magazine. Bannon’s reasoning was that the missile strikes violated Trump’s America First ideology, while his ideological foe in the White House — Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — insisted they were necessary as a response to Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people.

The Kushner-Bannon fight is about ideology. Kushner is a globalist, while Bannon is an Alt-Right nationalist.

While Bannon’s office contains a board that lists what he believes represent Trump’s core populist promises, Kushner has pushed against them with a centrist perspective that has caused Bannon to call him a “Democrat.” (Kushner has indeed given a great deal of money to Democrats and has in the past expressed admiration for presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.)

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

Mr. Unz,

I went to a good high school in Mass. and in my senior year 12 students were admitted to Harvard. Of those kids, probably only a handful deserved to be there.

For instance, one of the kids had a father and a sister who were alumni . His father worked in an important position at a major insurance company, so I’m sure the dad donated money, although not Charles Kushner money. They were neighbors on Martha’s vineyard with the Harvard application reader for our area, and so I think there was an unofficial assurance that he would get in. He wasn’t a terrible student, but he would probably be going to Bates, or something, if not for this.

There were also the cases of professors whose children sort of regressed to the mean. Once again, not terrible students, but then again certainly not Harvard material either.

Also, there were affirmative action admits. The kids who got in via affirmative action were worse students than the kids listed above. I would say affirmative Action was worth about 300 SAT points (on a 2400 point scale) whereas the kids above probably got like 150 points (this is all very rough guesstimation). In any case one of the girls who got in through affirmative action had a white mother, and had parents who made a lot of money. The other girl was hispanic, poor, and earnest, but not especially bright.

That's interesting to hear. I was aware that students from a) Massachusetts b) New England and c) the Northeast in general were overrepresented at Harvard, etc., but I assumed it was because the students from there were smarter, or more desirous of Ivy credentials, or more ideologically in tune with the elite, or all of the above. Didn't realize there was so much of this going on.

I don’t understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren’t they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload? Why isn’t their self-esteem being destroyed by being surrounded by people who are way smarter than them? I guess that wealth does equal happiness after all.

don’t understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren’t they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload?

1. In a number of majors, the workload isn't what it used to be.2. Decent grades are easier to come by than a couple of decades ago.3. If your parents are wealthy, there is little downside to mediocre performance, as long as you get your degree. AFAIK, Harvard doesn't flunk anyone out after freshman year anymore.

I don't mind being around more intelligent, better looking, more athletic, more creative people. Happens more than I'd like; I'm a middling human being. I don't live a high-pressure life, however, so I wouldn't know about that part.

If you don't have an image of yourself as being the smartest guy in the room, the best looking, the whatever, you won't have your expectations crushed. And there are always other games to be played. Kushner had money, yes. He also sleeps with a beautiful woman and has the ear of the president. Would you take that, or being Harvard-smart? That ain't everything. Some people know that, even (especially?) at college age.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

While the Syria thing makes me cringe, there's a reasonable chance it will not lead to any escalated actions in Syria. It may actually make it easier for Trump to do his job, because he's changing the story, getting some positive comments from some severe critics, putting to rest the idiot Russia narrative, and generally, to many people, looking every bit the President.

Of course I continue to be baffled as to why he did this thing in Syria to begin with.

I mean, pictures of kids?

Jesus. Just Jesus.

It may actually make it easier for Trump to do his job, because he’s changing the story, getting some positive comments from some severe critics, putting to rest the idiot Russia narrative, and generally, to many people, looking every bit the President.

Let’s hope the Susan Rice story is not allowed to die. It appeared something was about to blow open in the “tapped my wires” story. Please don’t let Rice and company off the hook.

I went to a good high school in Mass. and in my senior year 12 students were admitted to Harvard. Of those kids, probably only a handful deserved to be there.

For instance, one of the kids had a father and a sister who were alumni . His father worked in an important position at a major insurance company, so I'm sure the dad donated money, although not Charles Kushner money. They were neighbors on Martha's vineyard with the Harvard application reader for our area, and so I think there was an unofficial assurance that he would get in. He wasn't a terrible student, but he would probably be going to Bates, or something, if not for this.

There were also the cases of professors whose children sort of regressed to the mean. Once again, not terrible students, but then again certainly not Harvard material either.

Also, there were affirmative action admits. The kids who got in via affirmative action were worse students than the kids listed above. I would say affirmative Action was worth about 300 SAT points (on a 2400 point scale) whereas the kids above probably got like 150 points (this is all very rough guesstimation). In any case one of the girls who got in through affirmative action had a white mother, and had parents who made a lot of money. The other girl was hispanic, poor, and earnest, but not especially bright.

That’s interesting to hear. I was aware that students from a) Massachusetts b) New England and c) the Northeast in general were overrepresented at Harvard, etc., but I assumed it was because the students from there were smarter, or more desirous of Ivy credentials, or more ideologically in tune with the elite, or all of the above. Didn’t realize there was so much of this going on.

When Jared was a teen Benjamin Netanyahu literally slept in his bed. Jared moved to the basement that night. Trump is obviously relying on Kushner for advice on the Middle East.

Israel wants Assad gone in order to counter growing Iranian hegemony. Separate Iran from Hezbollah in Lebanon by taking out Assad, even if it means backing groups sympathetic to al Qaeda. Sy Hersh wrote about this in a March 5, 2007, New Yorker article, “The Redirection.”

Top neocon thinking goes like this:

1) An EMP weapon (nuclear bomb) could result in the death of up to 90% of all Americans.

2) Nobody’s hands are clean in the Middle East.

3) Thus we’re justified in arming the same people who toppled the Twin Towers, because it hurts Iran.

So here we are, with al Qaeda apparently calling in a U.S. air strike on Syrian government assets by setting off chemical weapons. Can’t prove that’s what happened, but I’m a good guesser.

OTOH, his disavowal of Spencer in that Mother Jones piece seems hypocritical, vindictive and weak. And untrue; he must have known Spencer, who I understand was already at AmConMag, ie working with no less known a figure than Buchanan.

How is our cause helped if Miller does not disavowing Spencer?

And it's not like Spencer was some innocent private citizen whose privacy was invaded by the media or by Miller blabbing away. Spencer chose to go public with his alleged personal relationships. The honorable thing is for public figures like Spencer to keep personal relationships private.

As I’m to the right of Spencer (a position I share with thousands of activists, approximated at TheRightStuff.biz), my question would be, “how is our cause helped if Miller does not avow Spencer?

And it must come to that if America is to become great again, for it was made great as a White offshoot of Western Europe, and fell from greatness through anti-White animus, the latter instigated in no small part by Jews.

I know a nice kid who got into Stanford last year, whose dad made a large ($10+million) contribution to Stanford in the year preceding her application. Funny thing is, she may well have got in without the donation. Stellar grades, maxed out on IB courses, ethnic/cultural East Indian with an East African passport (and thus self-identified as African), and on the Olympic swim team of some minor country that she had been sent to boarding school at. Billionaire dad, transnational identity. I know the dad through business, and he was candid about it being a belt and suspenders move.

The rest of us don’t stand a chance against the plutocratic class, and there are lots of them around, compared to 35 years ago.

62 Piltdown Man > The rest of us don’t stand a chance against the plutocratic class

....if you play by their rules, one of which is to give respect to a Harvard sheepskin.

One is reminded of my constant whining about the contributions that iSteve ==could have been making== to the White American people, if he had just stopped reading the SJW press all day so that he could dissect it.

I am friendly with a kid here who is about to finish his conscript service in Unit 8200. He wants to go to MIT (probably does have a plausible chance of getting in); I told him to instead, go to South Dakota School of Mines or Texas A&M.

By the way, how did Harvard get its land? Who was genocided to make room for Harvard?

I don't understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren't they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload? Why isn't their self-esteem being destroyed by being surrounded by people who are way smarter than them? I guess that wealth does equal happiness after all.

don’t understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren’t they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload?

1. In a number of majors, the workload isn’t what it used to be.
2. Decent grades are easier to come by than a couple of decades ago.
3. If your parents are wealthy, there is little downside to mediocre performance, as long as you get your degree. AFAIK, Harvard doesn’t flunk anyone out after freshman year anymore.

I went to a good high school in Mass. and in my senior year 12 students were admitted to Harvard. Of those kids, probably only a handful deserved to be there.

For instance, one of the kids had a father and a sister who were alumni . His father worked in an important position at a major insurance company, so I'm sure the dad donated money, although not Charles Kushner money. They were neighbors on Martha's vineyard with the Harvard application reader for our area, and so I think there was an unofficial assurance that he would get in. He wasn't a terrible student, but he would probably be going to Bates, or something, if not for this.

There were also the cases of professors whose children sort of regressed to the mean. Once again, not terrible students, but then again certainly not Harvard material either.

Also, there were affirmative action admits. The kids who got in via affirmative action were worse students than the kids listed above. I would say affirmative Action was worth about 300 SAT points (on a 2400 point scale) whereas the kids above probably got like 150 points (this is all very rough guesstimation). In any case one of the girls who got in through affirmative action had a white mother, and had parents who made a lot of money. The other girl was hispanic, poor, and earnest, but not especially bright.

don’t understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren’t they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload?

1. In a number of majors, the workload isn't what it used to be.2. Decent grades are easier to come by than a couple of decades ago.3. If your parents are wealthy, there is little downside to mediocre performance, as long as you get your degree. AFAIK, Harvard doesn't flunk anyone out after freshman year anymore.

PiltdownMan:

Yes, good grades are easier to achieve than at earlier times.

To wit, 91% of Harvard students graduated summa, magna, or cum laude in 2001.

America Needs more workers
… With lackluster GDP growth threatening to become our new normal, allowing more immigrants to enter for the sake of employment is one of the few policies that might restore our old normal. If the U.S. doubled its total immigration and prioritized bringing in new workers, it could add more than half a percentage point a year to expected GDP growth.

Understanding the role of the United States in the global economy
… Liberalized trade — in broadly multilateral, regional, or bilateral agreements — is a key ingredient in the recipe for prosperity. … An absolute prerequisite for long-term economic growth is full participation in the global economy and trading system.

Analysis of the economic effects of immigration reform
… This paper explores the economic consequences of expanded immigration on the U.S. economy. It begins by reviewing the immigration practices of our OECD trading partners, and documenting that immigration, as a share of the work force, is well below international norms. The literature identifying the economic impact of immigration is reviewed, suggesting that economic growth could expand significantly if immigration in the U.S. were expanded.

These passages are by Kevin Hassett, the economist who will be nominated by Donald Trump to be the next chair of the Council of Economic Advisors.

The latest reports of internal White House drama suggest that [Kushner pal] Gary Cohn is amassing power and that Steven Bannon is struggling. With the selection of Hassett as CEA chair, it would seem that nationalist forces have lost some ground when it comes to the economic advice reaching the president — at least for now.

Here’s another way of looking at this. By grossly overpaying for your child’s education at Harvard, you are providing funds that are used to maintain the school and hire excellent professors. This benefits all the students who only paid the normal price. It’s kind of like how first class passengers paying more subsidize the passengers riding in coach. So how is it unfair?

What is unfair is when someone gets into Harvard based on their skin color, ethnicity, immigration/refugee status, or sexual preference. Then they get scholarships for the same reason.

I don't understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren't they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload? Why isn't their self-esteem being destroyed by being surrounded by people who are way smarter than them? I guess that wealth does equal happiness after all.

It is nearly impossible to give a D or an F to a student in the ivy league.

Daniel Golden is a not-especially-bright middle class grind (Jewish, for those here who track that). He attended Harvard and was shocked, shocked to discover that its class profile and system of admission is different from CalTech’s.

For 10 years, Golden has been pointing to Kushner as the prime example of Harvard admitting mediocre students for money. Events have shown that Golden and his source were idiots, and the Harvard admission office hit the ball out of the park by choosing Kushner over other applicants with higher scores.

When Jared was a teen Benjamin Netanyahu literally slept in his bed. Jared moved to the basement that night. Trump is obviously relying on Kushner for advice on the Middle East.

Israel wants Assad gone in order to counter growing Iranian hegemony. Separate Iran from Hezbollah in Lebanon by taking out Assad, even if it means backing groups sympathetic to al Qaeda. Sy Hersh wrote about this in a March 5, 2007, New Yorker article, "The Redirection."

Top neocon thinking goes like this:

1) An EMP weapon (nuclear bomb) could result in the death of up to 90% of all Americans.

2) Nobody's hands are clean in the Middle East.

3) Thus we're justified in arming the same people who toppled the Twin Towers, because it hurts Iran.

So here we are, with al Qaeda apparently calling in a U.S. air strike on Syrian government assets by setting off chemical weapons. Can't prove that's what happened, but I'm a good guesser.

1) An EMP weapon (nuclear bomb) could result in the death of up to 90% of all Americans.

I've heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That numbercomes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here's an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

00:0001:00
Suspected for years of plotting to dismantle the U.S. electric grid, American officials have confirmed that Iranian military brass have endorsed a nuclear electromagnetic pulse explosion that would attack the country's power system.

American defense experts made the discovery while translating a secret Iranian military handbook, raising new concerns about Tehran's recent nuclear talks with the administration.

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week's elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran's threat to free nations.

"Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States," he wrote.

A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.

Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.

Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.

Pry has suggested ways for Iran to deliver a nuclear attack: by ship launched off the East Coast, a missile or via satellite.

Either way the result could be destruction of all or part of the U.S. electric grid, robbing the public of power, computers, water and communications for potentially a year.

Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, said the threat to the grid can also come from solar activity.

He has been pushing Washington and state governments to take the relatively inexpensive move to protect the electric grid, though his concern is from a nuclear attack by Iran or North Korea.

"It is increasingly frightening," he said. "We have to get started on this."

He noted that Iran's top military leader recently announced that he was ready for war with the U.S.

"We are ready for the decisive battle against the U.S. and the Zionist regime," Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hassan Firouzabadi told Iran's Fars News Agency in 2014.

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

Iranian military documents describe such a scenario--including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia "scandal." If Bannon is no longer there, then there won't be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

As for Stephen Miller, there are those who want him out too. Joe Scarborough (who talks to Trump pretty often) hates Miller and has really torn into him. It's unusual to see a speechwriter get hit so hard, but Scarborough doesn't want him in the Trump administration. Sessions brought Miller to DC with him, but what happens if Sessions and Bannon are gone.

Even the Washington Post is surprised by how much Scarborough hates Miller.

There are also a lot of stories about how a lot of original Trump backers are getting frozen out of White House jobs, which are now going to Republican establishment types and New York globalists (such as Goldman Sachs exec Gary Cohn).

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia “scandal.” If Bannon is no longer there, then there won’t be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

Trump quite possibly owes his Presidency to Jeff Sessions. During the primary, Alabama turned out 44% for Trump – a bunch of southern baptists voted for the Yankee New Yorker who doesn’t care about abortion or gay rights. Jeff Sessions endorsement probably had a lot to do with that. The deep south – against expectation – came out strong for Trump. If Trump gets rid of Sessions, he’s a fool. Naturally, my desire would be for Trump to keep Sessions, Miller, and Bannon, and accord them even greater influence.

I don't understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren't they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload? Why isn't their self-esteem being destroyed by being surrounded by people who are way smarter than them? I guess that wealth does equal happiness after all.

I don’t mind being around more intelligent, better looking, more athletic, more creative people. Happens more than I’d like; I’m a middling human being. I don’t live a high-pressure life, however, so I wouldn’t know about that part.

If you don’t have an image of yourself as being the smartest guy in the room, the best looking, the whatever, you won’t have your expectations crushed. And there are always other games to be played. Kushner had money, yes. He also sleeps with a beautiful woman and has the ear of the president. Would you take that, or being Harvard-smart? That ain’t everything. Some people know that, even (especially?) at college age.

I don't mind being around more intelligent, better looking, more athletic, more creative people. Happens more than I'd like; I'm a middling human being. I don't live a high-pressure life, however, so I wouldn't know about that part.

If you don't have an image of yourself as being the smartest guy in the room, the best looking, the whatever, you won't have your expectations crushed. And there are always other games to be played. Kushner had money, yes. He also sleeps with a beautiful woman and has the ear of the president. Would you take that, or being Harvard-smart? That ain't everything. Some people know that, even (especially?) at college age.

Kushner is a handsome guy in a slightly Justin Trudeau way. Part of Harvard’s admission strategy is to make sure to let in some good-looking people.

Part of Harvard’s admission strategy is to make sure to let in some good-looking people.

Is this something they can know for 17 year olds, given that kids are still developing?I think they might consider high placement in a major beauty contest as a significant item on a resume and thus admit some state or regional beauty pageant winners with good test scores.

Trump blew up bits and pieces of a old airbase which got the Neo-Con’s off his back and sent a message to that fat dwarf in NK and let the Chinese know he doesn’t screw around. Oddly enough no one is talking about the second base supposedly bombed. The Russians report only half of the SLCM’s reached their target.

This is weird, even RT doesn’t mention the second air base.

Then he has Tillerson put on a show verbal slapping the Russians. Shutting up the Democrats.

Which is all fine provided he goes no further. If he escalates, he seals his fate.

Of course when you play real politik like that, especially when you run on a platform of putting America first, Trump is risking turning his base against him.

I honestly can't take 90% of the iSteve commentariat seriously anymore because its all people trying to out doom each other around here based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

There is no penalty for being wrong. Every bump in the road is GOODBYE AMERICA and then when the mushroom clouds don't appear they just stumble around until the next situation (unless they're patting themselves on the back about being the Secret Masters of Politics lmfao).

There are also calls for Sessions to resign over his role in the Russia "scandal." If Bannon is no longer there, then there won't be anyone to protect Sessions. I could see the Kushner clique pushing him out.

As for Stephen Miller, there are those who want him out too. Joe Scarborough (who talks to Trump pretty often) hates Miller and has really torn into him. It's unusual to see a speechwriter get hit so hard, but Scarborough doesn't want him in the Trump administration. Sessions brought Miller to DC with him, but what happens if Sessions and Bannon are gone.

Even the Washington Post is surprised by how much Scarborough hates Miller.

There are also a lot of stories about how a lot of original Trump backers are getting frozen out of White House jobs, which are now going to Republican establishment types and New York globalists (such as Goldman Sachs exec Gary Cohn).

Trump manages the White House staff like Bob Wills managed the roster of the Texas Playboys.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, google is your friend as well as not knowing enough about Bob Wills, American music icon, you should be ashamed you gotta google him.

I don't understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren't they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload? Why isn't their self-esteem being destroyed by being surrounded by people who are way smarter than them? I guess that wealth does equal happiness after all.

I think you are confusing Harvard with MIT.

The median course grade at Harvard is -A. Ninety-one percent of the students graduate with honors.

As the old saying goes, “The hardest thing about Harvard is getting in.” And apparently that’s not so hard with enough of Daddy’s money.

My opinions are mixed.
I brute-forced it into a HYP school (and contrary to conventional wisdom, this is possible) but my “results” are unimpressive. I’m extremely underemployed and now posting anonymously on iSteve. I could probably use my real name since no one knows who I am, but I dream.
But still…. Jared Kushner managed to become (it seems) one of the top two advisors to the president of the United States. How exactly is Harvard wrong? Maybe I’m being somewhat cynical, but the guy clearly has something going on.
Apparently Bannon is calling him a “cuck” and a “Democrat”. I sympathize with Bannon, but Jared seems to be a very competent Democratic cuck, if that is what he really is. Life is complex,

He managed to marry Ivanka. Not a small feat, but you don't need to be smart or competent, being rich, tall and handsome with a nice, but not too nice personality might do the trick.

Then he gained the trust of his father-in-law, for which you need to have a nice personality and also be an at least somewhat competent businessman.

Then you have to be lucky for your father-in-law to become president. Some stories have it that he was running some computer simulations to show where he needed to hold speeches.

That's not unimpressive at all (though the much of it, like being handsome etc. is or should be irrelevant to Harvard), though one might wonder how many other people would have been capable of doing that.

"I brute-forced it into a HYP school (and contrary to conventional wisdom, this is possible) but my “results” are unimpressive. I’m extremely underemployed and now posting anonymously on iSteve."

The USA is clearly becoming a more caste based society, so I suspect you are not the only person in this situation.

As someone else pointed out, these schools increasingly exist for the children of the 1% -and now its the 1% from around the world- to spend some time together as young adults and make connections. If you are a middle class student who got into these places through good grads/ test scores, these places are just not for you. I would advise a bright middle class student entering college in 2017 to go to their State U., where the connections they would be making would be within their own caste and might actually be useful down the road.

If things continue on as they have, the next step is that HYP just stops admitting middle class students. Actually this would return things to how they were before the GI bill. The thing about that period is that an Ivy League degree just wasn't thought as something that a bright middle class man (no co-ed higher education!) would normally have, and it was normal to be successful, even in professions, without any bachelor of arts or equivalent at all. Unfortunately for a few generations, there will be a lag before the culture catches up with the fact that things are not as they were in the post World War 2 decades in this country, as in other things.

Kushner is a handsome guy in a slightly Justin Trudeau way. Part of Harvard's admission strategy is to make sure to let in some good-looking people.

Part of Harvard’s admission strategy is to make sure to let in some good-looking people.

Is this something they can know for 17 year olds, given that kids are still developing?
I think they might consider high placement in a major beauty contest as a significant item on a resume and thus admit some state or regional beauty pageant winners with good test scores.

One of those conspiracy theories that just sounds so perfectly plausible is that Charles Kushner was working for Israeli intelligence specializing in blackmail. Kushner’s Israeli govt. relationships are well known, as is Kushner’s penchant for blackmail and sketchy circles.

One of those conspiracy theories that just sounds so perfectly plausible is that Charles Kushner was working for Israeli intelligence specializing in blackmail. Kushner's Israeli govt. relationships are well known, as is Kushner's penchant for blackmail and sketchy circles.

Another conspiracy theory is that there really is a Trump-Putin connection, except it goes through Kushner to his Chabad rabbi to Putin’s favorite Chabad rabbi to Putin, so nobody talks about it.

… I don’t even know how to quantify Kushner’s expertise, anyway. Yes, he ran the company — which he inherited, not uncommon in New York’s dynastic, insular real estate world. But he was sure he had the goods. When I worked for him, I didn’t think he had a realistic view of his own capabilities since, like his father-in-law, he seemed to view his wealth and its concomitant accoutrements as rewards for his personal success in business, and not something he would have had in any case. To me, he appeared to view his position and net worth as the products of an essentially meritocratic process.

My child just went through the whole college admissions process and what was striking to me was the level of discrimination against East Asian kids by elite schools. In fact, there was one girl with the misfortune of having an Asian last name despite being 3/4 white. She got slammed by all the top schools even though she had good grades and test scores and is the sort of genuinely good person who gets excellent recommendations.

I know a nice kid who got into Stanford last year, whose dad made a large ($10+million) contribution to Stanford in the year preceding her application. Funny thing is, she may well have got in without the donation. Stellar grades, maxed out on IB courses, ethnic/cultural East Indian with an East African passport (and thus self-identified as African), and on the Olympic swim team of some minor country that she had been sent to boarding school at. Billionaire dad, transnational identity. I know the dad through business, and he was candid about it being a belt and suspenders move.

The rest of us don't stand a chance against the plutocratic class, and there are lots of them around, compared to 35 years ago.

62 Piltdown Man > The rest of us don’t stand a chance against the plutocratic class

….if you play by their rules, one of which is to give respect to a Harvard sheepskin.

One is reminded of my constant whining about the contributions that iSteve ==could have been making== to the White American people, if he had just stopped reading the SJW press all day so that he could dissect it.

I am friendly with a kid here who is about to finish his conscript service in Unit 8200. He wants to go to MIT (probably does have a plausible chance of getting in); I told him to instead, go to South Dakota School of Mines or Texas A&M.

By the way, how did Harvard get its land? Who was genocided to make room for Harvard?

I know a nice kid who got into Stanford last year, whose dad made a large ($10+million) contribution to Stanford in the year preceding her application. Funny thing is, she may well have got in without the donation. Stellar grades, maxed out on IB courses, ethnic/cultural East Indian with an East African passport (and thus self-identified as African), and on the Olympic swim team of some minor country that she had been sent to boarding school at. Billionaire dad, transnational identity. I know the dad through business, and he was candid about it being a belt and suspenders move.

The rest of us don't stand a chance against the plutocratic class, and there are lots of them around, compared to 35 years ago.

Top education sort of mirrors home buying in America. First, you could use HOAs to keep out the riff raff. Now you make joining too expensive for the riff raff.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

Although I’m sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years…

No doubt about it. It’s just another racket. And it ain’t exactly news, either.

Benjamin Franklin attended school for two years, and his schooling ended when he was ten.
This is Ben Franklin (as Silence Dogood) at age 16 :

“…I reflected in my Mind on the extreme Folly of those Parents, who, blind to their Childrens Dullness, and insensible of the Solidity of their Skulls, because they think their Purses can afford it, will need send them to the Temple of Learning, where, for want of a suitable Genius, they learn little more than how to carry themselves handsomely, and enter a Room genteely, (which might as well be acquir’d at a Dancing-School,) and from whence they return, after Abundance of Trouble and Charge, as great Blockheads as ever, only more proud and self-conceited.

…[and] he, without much Study, presently interpreted it, assuring me, That it was a lively Representation of HARVARD COLLEGE, Etcetera. I remain, Sir, Your Humble Servant,

My opinions are mixed.
I brute-forced it into a HYP school (and contrary to conventional wisdom, this is possible) but my "results" are unimpressive. I'm extremely underemployed and now posting anonymously on iSteve. I could probably use my real name since no one knows who I am, but I dream.
But still.... Jared Kushner managed to become (it seems) one of the top two advisors to the president of the United States. How exactly is Harvard wrong? Maybe I'm being somewhat cynical, but the guy clearly has something going on.
Apparently Bannon is calling him a "cuck" and a "Democrat". I sympathize with Bannon, but Jared seems to be a very competent Democratic cuck, if that is what he really is. Life is complex,

He managed to marry Ivanka. Not a small feat, but you don’t need to be smart or competent, being rich, tall and handsome with a nice, but not too nice personality might do the trick.

Then he gained the trust of his father-in-law, for which you need to have a nice personality and also be an at least somewhat competent businessman.

Then you have to be lucky for your father-in-law to become president. Some stories have it that he was running some computer simulations to show where he needed to hold speeches.

That’s not unimpressive at all (though the much of it, like being handsome etc. is or should be irrelevant to Harvard), though one might wonder how many other people would have been capable of doing that.

Didn’t Ivanka tweet in 2015 how it was stupid and unfair that you could be proud to be black but not to be white, or something along those lines? Or do I mix her up with someone? Perhaps with a parody account? I seem to remember that a commenter here cited it back then.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

I saw the Journolist clique passing it around and loving it, but true, not the elite guys.

I *really* think that when Brad Parscale said Jared Kushner was important to his data operation, the biggest unsung success story of the election, he was probably not telling the entire truth. Just flattering of the boss’s son-in-law? I thought it a little strange when that big story came out about Kushner that Parscale was given little credit; too inconvenient for the narrative, I guess.

But, though many factors elected Trump, Brad Parscale is one piece, that, if you removed him, Trump would have lost.

don’t understand how dumb people can graduate from Harvard without being permanently mentally scarred. Why aren’t they suffering nervous breakdowns over not being able to keep up with the workload?

1. In a number of majors, the workload isn't what it used to be.2. Decent grades are easier to come by than a couple of decades ago.3. If your parents are wealthy, there is little downside to mediocre performance, as long as you get your degree. AFAIK, Harvard doesn't flunk anyone out after freshman year anymore.

Charles Kushner had hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law, who was cooperating with federal authorities. Kushner then had a videotape of the tryst sent to his sister.

I wonder what the Kushners have on Trump. Every time the two are together in a room, Kushner looks composed – with a hint of a smile. Trump looks disgruntled. The whole Trump shtick has been a mask of populism designed to get the usual suspects in power. If you think Trump will be non-interventionist or push hard against immigration, then you forget who owns him.

1) An EMP weapon (nuclear bomb) could result in the death of up to 90% of all Americans.

That is almost certainly bullshit.

I’ve heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That numbercomes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here’s an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

00:0001:00
Suspected for years of plotting to dismantle the U.S. electric grid, American officials have confirmed that Iranian military brass have endorsed a nuclear electromagnetic pulse explosion that would attack the country’s power system.

American defense experts made the discovery while translating a secret Iranian military handbook, raising new concerns about Tehran’s recent nuclear talks with the administration.

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week’s elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran’s threat to free nations.

“Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States,” he wrote.

A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.

Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.

Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

Iranian military documents describe such a scenario–including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos.

I’ve heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That number comes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here’s an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

Which to me sounds like a means of ginning up american resolve to oppose Iran. One or two nuclear weapons is not really much of a threat to the U.S., unless these dire claims about EMP are true. By the way, I looked in the report you mentioned, which I believe is this:

I didn't find any such claim about EMP leading to the deaths of up to 90% of Americans. Of course, I didn't read the whole thing, but I searched keywords such as "kill", "killed", "death", "casualty", etc.. If you can find the claim, please let me know.

The fact that people like Frank Gaffney are torqued up about the topic does not especially alarm me. Gaffney has the reputation (perhaps not entirely justified) of being something of a crank.

EMP is a potentially damaging phenomenon, and we ought to be doing a few things to harden the electrical grid against it - against the possibility of a solar event, if for no other reason. But the notion that it levels the playing field between small nations like Iran and North Korea and us seems ludicrous to me. In particular, it would not shield them from retaliation. Strategic nuclear forces are specifically designed to withstand EMP, at least better than anything else is, and we would probably still have enough of them left to turn any such attacker into a wasteland of smoking craters.

I stand by my assertion that wild claims about Iran or North Korea being able to destroy us with a single nuclear weapon are, essentially, tendentious bullshit.

I saw the Journolist clique passing it around and loving it, but true, not the elite guys.

I *really* think that when Brad Parscale said Jared Kushner was important to his data operation, the biggest unsung success story of the election, he was probably not telling the entire truth. Just flattering of the boss's son-in-law? I thought it a little strange when that big story came out about Kushner that Parscale was given little credit; too inconvenient for the narrative, I guess.

But, though many factors elected Trump, Brad Parscale is one piece, that, if you removed him, Trump would have lost.

Interesting. What do you think it means?I suspect going back and reading and listening to Parscale interviews, and what he said about Jared would be most illuminating. When he spoke at Harvard, he spoke more in tech mode, so that would be a good place to start. I want to be fair to Kushner, because I truly may have forgotten something, but my sense was that while he got praised, nothing specific was pointed to. And I'm not aware of Kushner being asked tech, or any questions, about the operation; no sense there that he's the go-to guy for anything like this.

Again, I want to be fair: I really do have a bad memory. I read and listened to every single Parscale piece or interview because I found it, utterly, *utterly*, fascinating, but I got the impression, an overall sense, that despite Parscale saying Kushner was fundamental, that Kushner's big role was really more about believing in Parscale and giving him wide breadth. No small thing by the way: God knows Hillary Clinton didn't have a Brad Parscale on her team and if he'd landed on their laps, they'd been at a loss with what to do with him.

Related, last I checked, Parscale had been dimished at "American First" policies. I hope that's wrong. But in any event, this man simply has not gotten his due. Democrats preferred hearing about how nefarious forces, the same ones that our ruling class just happens to want to war with for years, robbed them of the election than that of Parscale's genius machinations.

A politician would pick White Core American knowing that he might have to say it a few thousand times. Also, you could add a twangy, country and western accent to it to make it sound more down-home.

Jared “Knish” Kushner and Harvard are both extremely irritating subjects. The White Core Americans who voted for President Trump did not vote to be ruled by a little rich boy bastard who benefited from having his daddy buy their way into Harvard. Harvard is a hedge fund disguised as a university. Harvard Hates America.

Whatever the level of intellectual achievement a kid demonstrated in his studies by the age of 17 is only a rough guide to what ability he might show by the age of 35.

While Jesus was--it is claimed--stunning the temple elders with his wit and wisdom at the age of 12, Charles Darwin was a late-developing son of a wealthy family who dropped out of medical school. He then enrolled in a Bachelor's degee at the University of Cambridge, where he preferred riding and shooting to studying, and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley's Evidences of Christianity.

Both had careers that changed the world.

Like Hillary Clinton, Kushner married well and could possibly be a future President in training. Then again, maybe not, but at this point we don't really know what he might evolve into.

“While Jesus was–it is claimed–stunning the temple elders with his wit and wisdom at the age of 12,”

Nothing personal, but I do wish people would stop quoting fairy tales as if they were data.

Obama and Bush both went to Harvard grad school (JD and MBA respectively).

I wonder if they got in on their merits.

In particular, how did Bush make it into a Harvard MBA? In what world does George W. Bush get into the most competitive business-school in the world?

When W applied to the HBS, admissions was not near as competitive as it is today. Last year HBS accepted 11% of its applicants.
In 1973, according to a Bloomberg article:
“Surely junior’s application stood out. George W. Bush was a picture of honor once he got past his party days at Yale with the Delta Kappa Epsilon brothers and members of Skull & Bones, a secret society that enrolled him during his senior year — so hush-hush, in fact, it barely gets a mention in his book. Bush earned an undergraduate degree in history from Yale in 1968. His grades weren’t great, and nobody can seem to locate his GMAT scores. The story starts with Bush’s application. ”

My opinions are mixed.
I brute-forced it into a HYP school (and contrary to conventional wisdom, this is possible) but my "results" are unimpressive. I'm extremely underemployed and now posting anonymously on iSteve. I could probably use my real name since no one knows who I am, but I dream.
But still.... Jared Kushner managed to become (it seems) one of the top two advisors to the president of the United States. How exactly is Harvard wrong? Maybe I'm being somewhat cynical, but the guy clearly has something going on.
Apparently Bannon is calling him a "cuck" and a "Democrat". I sympathize with Bannon, but Jared seems to be a very competent Democratic cuck, if that is what he really is. Life is complex,

“I brute-forced it into a HYP school (and contrary to conventional wisdom, this is possible) but my “results” are unimpressive. I’m extremely underemployed and now posting anonymously on iSteve.”

The USA is clearly becoming a more caste based society, so I suspect you are not the only person in this situation.

As someone else pointed out, these schools increasingly exist for the children of the 1% -and now its the 1% from around the world- to spend some time together as young adults and make connections. If you are a middle class student who got into these places through good grads/ test scores, these places are just not for you. I would advise a bright middle class student entering college in 2017 to go to their State U., where the connections they would be making would be within their own caste and might actually be useful down the road.

If things continue on as they have, the next step is that HYP just stops admitting middle class students. Actually this would return things to how they were before the GI bill. The thing about that period is that an Ivy League degree just wasn’t thought as something that a bright middle class man (no co-ed higher education!) would normally have, and it was normal to be successful, even in professions, without any bachelor of arts or equivalent at all. Unfortunately for a few generations, there will be a lag before the culture catches up with the fact that things are not as they were in the post World War 2 decades in this country, as in other things.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

I think that people may generally be underrating the importance of the personal in the Trump WH.

My guess is that one of Trump's real weaknesses is an inclination for nepotism. He seems entirely too eager to put family members in positions of power -- which may work in a real estate business, but is likely to backfire badly in the running of a government.

I think he has a lot of difficulty saying no to his own family, especially those, like Ivanka, upon whom he especially dotes. Jarred comes with her, of course.

I'd guess that Bannon is probably not a particularly easy character to deal with on a day to day basis. Also, he's not a worshipful sort, and Trump loves some worship.

While we (and others) may see these people in terms of what they stand for ideologically, I doubt that that's the prominent consideration in Trump's mind when he thinks about them. Frankly, if we were working with them, it's probably not their ideology that would be most prominent in our minds.

How it plays out, who knows?

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Compare that with the Clintons, where for all their perfidy, they had a whole mafia of loyalists.

The sense I get is that the Trumps have burned through a lot of people, and one of the recurring iSteve themes is that when strangers and friends don’t trust you and you don’t trust them, family is all you’ve got.

Of course I haven't given up; I'm astounded by how many posters here are suddenly buying into the "Trump is a vain/shallow/opportunistic/idiotic/incoherent blunderer" story that's been sold by the media ever since he announced his run for the Presidency. Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he's a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner). Trump was talking about his signature trade and immigration issues as far back as the 1980s, long before he ever met Bannon; Bannon also didn't come on board in his campaign until fairly late in the game. I definitely wish Trump hadn't stuck his foot into the Syrian mess, but, unless he makes a more definite move (which God forbid), it seems to me that he's almost certainly made this token strike merely to (1) silence the "Russian puppet" accusation, (2) forestall his enemies in both parties from claiming that his quasi-approval of Assad emboldened Assad's alleged gas attack, and (3) throw a little scare into China, North Korea, and Iran. I don't think he did it simply because Kushner suggested it to him, or because Ivanka started crying over pictures of gassed babies; to believe that, I'd have have to believe that he's the mindless empty vessel that his enemies have painted him as, and he's come too far for me to ever believe that.

If Trump's improbable political career has shown anything, it's that he's not just the sum of the people around him. I remember hearing the doomsayers proclaiming that it was all over when Lewandowski was dumped for the slicker and shadier Manafort, or when Kellyanne Conway (with her dubious record on illegal immigration) came on board the campaign, and the doom didn't come to pass. Also, Bannon hasn't even been dumped yet; he went with Trump on Air Force One to the meeting with the Chinese, for goodness sake. In the meantime, we have Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (instead of Garland, or--gag--Obama, who might well have been put there by Hillary), we have Sessions as AG cracking down on sanctuary cities instead of Loretta Lynch strapping racism-detecting body-cams to Ferguson policemen, and we have bids being taken on the Great Border Wall. Until I see boots on the ground in Syria, I'll continue to be far more pleased than disappointed by the outcome of the election.

Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he’s a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner).

I've heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That numbercomes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here's an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

00:0001:00
Suspected for years of plotting to dismantle the U.S. electric grid, American officials have confirmed that Iranian military brass have endorsed a nuclear electromagnetic pulse explosion that would attack the country's power system.

American defense experts made the discovery while translating a secret Iranian military handbook, raising new concerns about Tehran's recent nuclear talks with the administration.

The issue of a nuclear EMP attack was raised in the final hours of this week's elections in Israel when U.S. authority Peter Vincent Pry penned a column for Arutz Sheva warning of Iran's threat to free nations.

"Iranian military documents describe such a scenario — including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States," he wrote.

A knowledgable source said that the textbook discusses an EMP attack on America in 20 different places.

Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, who is leading an effort to protect the U.S. electric grid from an EMP attack, has recently made similar claims based on the document translated by military authorities.

Once sneered at by critics, recent moves by Iran and North Korea have given credibility to the potential EMP threat from an atmospheric nuclear explosion over the U.S.

Pry has suggested ways for Iran to deliver a nuclear attack: by ship launched off the East Coast, a missile or via satellite.

Either way the result could be destruction of all or part of the U.S. electric grid, robbing the public of power, computers, water and communications for potentially a year.

Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, said the threat to the grid can also come from solar activity.

He has been pushing Washington and state governments to take the relatively inexpensive move to protect the electric grid, though his concern is from a nuclear attack by Iran or North Korea.

"It is increasingly frightening," he said. "We have to get started on this."

He noted that Iran's top military leader recently announced that he was ready for war with the U.S.

"We are ready for the decisive battle against the U.S. and the Zionist regime," Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff General Hassan Firouzabadi told Iran's Fars News Agency in 2014.

One nuclear warhead detonated at high-altitude over the United States would blackout the national electric grid and other life sustaining critical infrastructures for months or years by means of an electromagnetic pulse (EMP). A nationwide blackout lasting one year, according to the Congressional EMP Commission, could cause chaos and starvation that leaves 90 percent of Americans dead.

Iranian military documents describe such a scenario--including a recently translated Iranian military textbook that endorses nuclear EMP attack against the United States.

Thus, Iran with a small number of nuclear missiles can by EMP attack threaten the existence of modernity and be the death knell for Western principles of international law, humanism and freedom. For the first time in history, a failed state like Iran could destroy the most successful societies on Earth and convert an evolving benign world order into world chaos.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.

I’ve heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That number comes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here’s an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

Which to me sounds like a means of ginning up american resolve to oppose Iran. One or two nuclear weapons is not really much of a threat to the U.S., unless these dire claims about EMP are true. By the way, I looked in the report you mentioned, which I believe is this:

I didn’t find any such claim about EMP leading to the deaths of up to 90% of Americans. Of course, I didn’t read the whole thing, but I searched keywords such as “kill”, “killed”, “death”, “casualty”, etc.. If you can find the claim, please let me know.

The fact that people like Frank Gaffney are torqued up about the topic does not especially alarm me. Gaffney has the reputation (perhaps not entirely justified) of being something of a crank.

EMP is a potentially damaging phenomenon, and we ought to be doing a few things to harden the electrical grid against it – against the possibility of a solar event, if for no other reason. But the notion that it levels the playing field between small nations like Iran and North Korea and us seems ludicrous to me. In particular, it would not shield them from retaliation. Strategic nuclear forces are specifically designed to withstand EMP, at least better than anything else is, and we would probably still have enough of them left to turn any such attacker into a wasteland of smoking craters.

I stand by my assertion that wild claims about Iran or North Korea being able to destroy us with a single nuclear weapon are, essentially, tendentious bullshit.

Just to be clear, I didn't say that up to 90% of Americans would die in an EMP attack. I was pointing out that top neocons are saying that and using that scenario to justify the arming of groups sympathetic to al Qaeda.

I found this article from 2 weeks ago wherein James Woolsey uses the "up to 90%" figure: https://www.google.com/amp/thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/defense/326094-how-north-korea-could-kill-up-to-90-percent-of-americans-at-any%3Famp

Note that North Korea may have a "super-EMP" weapon and that they have 2 satellites orbit. Iran also launches satellites. Agree with you that the threat of retaliation makes such an attack unlikely, but their are ways to avoid attribution. Giving super-EMP to terrorists, for example.

Here's another scenario: Dear Leader diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, given 2 months to live. He remembers that American prostitute that snickered at the size of his manhood and decides to detonate super-EMP over U.S., just for fun.

Agree with you on Frank Gaffney.

Regarding Iran, some people think they have 4 nuclear weapons (per Yossef Bodansky).

Regarding 90% figure in Congressional EMP Commission report, I couldn't find it either. Peter Pry served in that commission and he says it's in the report, that's what I relied on. Skimmed thru the report quickly, might have missed it.

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

JW123 has it. Namely, peeling back the onion layers on Harvard admits would expose too many others for questionable admission. Inconvenient questions are those that few want answered. What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

And really, who’s surprised that money eases the way for some? It’s present in virtually all walks of life. Only the naïve see life as pristine from the influence of money.

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Compare that with the Clintons, where for all their perfidy, they had a whole mafia of loyalists.

The sense I get is that the Trumps have burned through a lot of people, and one of the recurring iSteve themes is that when strangers and friends don't trust you and you don't trust them, family is all you've got.

Gee, I wonder why people from New York City wouldn’t have wanted to openly support Donald Trump in 2016.

As far as #FireKushner goes, the problem is that Ivanka is #DaddysGirl. The solution is obvious and delicious.

Somebody needs to pull a Charles Kushner on Jared. That’d turn Trump against him. And if can’t be seduced willingly, well, I’m sure the CIA/Deep State has some tactics that could be applicable. Could something involving “water sports” be staged? That would also be delicious.

What do you mean, “grubby secret”? This has been their business plan for several hundred years; introducing the scions of wealthy New England families to each other is the whole point of Harvard.

What I've been wondering is if a big part of the purpose of these top schools now is to introduce the scions of the global elite to each other, and if that's the reason for admitting so many international students.

The vast endowments of the best American universities (even the “public” state schools) are now encouraging the belief that they can just cut themselves loose from their state charters and become schools for the global (money) elite. So you’re right there.

America was once revered around the world; I think that feeling has been lost, as far as the wealthiest globalists are concerned. Still, the best schools are here, for now anyway, so that’s where they come. I don’t think that the male Chinese students who come here for math, science and engineering believe one bit of the libtard crap that is served up, for instance.

The vast endowments of the best American universities (even the “public” state schools) are now encouraging the belief that they can just cut themselves loose from their state charters and become schools for the global (money) elite.

Status Striving Era. Your primary age little tykes' Catholic schools in cities have had this strange new tolerance policy for the last 15 years of taking in non-Catholics, but not at all tolerating, except a token inner-city kid or two, parents who can't come up with at least $16,000 per year.
(I'm Catholic, so all too well aware, but I'd guess other denominations are similar based on various Protestant college tuition $$$, though Steve has intimated BYU hasn't been corrupted. The more rural Catholic primary schools have not been corrupted.)

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Compare that with the Clintons, where for all their perfidy, they had a whole mafia of loyalists.

The sense I get is that the Trumps have burned through a lot of people, and one of the recurring iSteve themes is that when strangers and friends don't trust you and you don't trust them, family is all you've got.

He was the racist candidate, who was drawing votes from a basket of deplorables. He had many shy supporters. So I wouldn’t read much into it.

Aw, Steve Sailer still upset that his own boys aren’t smart enough to get into Harvard, so of course all those other kids that successfully made the cut are not smarter than Sailer’s kids: they are slimy cheaters!

Of course I haven't given up; I'm astounded by how many posters here are suddenly buying into the "Trump is a vain/shallow/opportunistic/idiotic/incoherent blunderer" story that's been sold by the media ever since he announced his run for the Presidency. Most of the posts seem to take it for granted that Trump has no mind or will of his own, and that he's a sort of Pinocchio being pulled back and forth between Jiminy Cricket (Bannon) and Foulfellow the Fox (Kushner). Trump was talking about his signature trade and immigration issues as far back as the 1980s, long before he ever met Bannon; Bannon also didn't come on board in his campaign until fairly late in the game. I definitely wish Trump hadn't stuck his foot into the Syrian mess, but, unless he makes a more definite move (which God forbid), it seems to me that he's almost certainly made this token strike merely to (1) silence the "Russian puppet" accusation, (2) forestall his enemies in both parties from claiming that his quasi-approval of Assad emboldened Assad's alleged gas attack, and (3) throw a little scare into China, North Korea, and Iran. I don't think he did it simply because Kushner suggested it to him, or because Ivanka started crying over pictures of gassed babies; to believe that, I'd have have to believe that he's the mindless empty vessel that his enemies have painted him as, and he's come too far for me to ever believe that.

If Trump's improbable political career has shown anything, it's that he's not just the sum of the people around him. I remember hearing the doomsayers proclaiming that it was all over when Lewandowski was dumped for the slicker and shadier Manafort, or when Kellyanne Conway (with her dubious record on illegal immigration) came on board the campaign, and the doom didn't come to pass. Also, Bannon hasn't even been dumped yet; he went with Trump on Air Force One to the meeting with the Chinese, for goodness sake. In the meantime, we have Gorsuch on the Supreme Court (instead of Garland, or--gag--Obama, who might well have been put there by Hillary), we have Sessions as AG cracking down on sanctuary cities instead of Loretta Lynch strapping racism-detecting body-cams to Ferguson policemen, and we have bids being taken on the Great Border Wall. Until I see boots on the ground in Syria, I'll continue to be far more pleased than disappointed by the outcome of the election.

Agree. I wasn’t happy about Syria but then again iSteve has been blackpill from top to bottom with the weirdest strain of masochism since Aug 2015.

Trump blew up bits and pieces of a old airbase which got the Neo-Con's off his back and sent a message to that fat dwarf in NK and let the Chinese know he doesn't screw around. Oddly enough no one is talking about the second base supposedly bombed. The Russians report only half of the SLCM's reached their target.

This is weird, even RT doesn't mention the second air base.

Then he has Tillerson put on a show verbal slapping the Russians. Shutting up the Democrats.

Which is all fine provided he goes no further. If he escalates, he seals his fate.

Of course when you play real politik like that, especially when you run on a platform of putting America first, Trump is risking turning his base against him.

I honestly can’t take 90% of the iSteve commentariat seriously anymore because its all people trying to out doom each other around here based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

There is no penalty for being wrong. Every bump in the road is GOODBYE AMERICA and then when the mushroom clouds don’t appear they just stumble around until the next situation (unless they’re patting themselves on the back about being the Secret Masters of Politics lmfao).

Aw, Steve Sailer still upset that his own boys aren't smart enough to get into Harvard, so of course all those other kids that successfully made the cut are not smarter than Sailer's kids: they are slimy cheaters!

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Compare that with the Clintons, where for all their perfidy, they had a whole mafia of loyalists.

The sense I get is that the Trumps have burned through a lot of people, and one of the recurring iSteve themes is that when strangers and friends don't trust you and you don't trust them, family is all you've got.

One thing that stood out to me about how Trump is that, for all his game and connections, very few people who had worked with him came out to support him.

Very few people came out against him on the basis of personal familiarity with him.

I honestly can't take 90% of the iSteve commentariat seriously anymore because its all people trying to out doom each other around here based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

There is no penalty for being wrong. Every bump in the road is GOODBYE AMERICA and then when the mushroom clouds don't appear they just stumble around until the next situation (unless they're patting themselves on the back about being the Secret Masters of Politics lmfao).

I am with Jack Hanson. There is too much doom and gloom. Experience has shown that Jack is right. And everyone from Derbyshire on down has been wrong. Are you sure that the hallucinating is attributable to Jack?

Yeah, exactly. Although I'm sure lots of wealthy families have bought a place at Harvard for their children over the years, Jared Kushner seems to be the only provable case, partly based on the trial records that sent his father off to federal prison.

During my unsuccessful Free Harvard/Fair Harvard campaign last year, I was sure the MSM journalists would absolutely jump at the Kushner story when I gave it to them, given that the MSM hated Trump so much and were willing to use anything against him.

But none of them were interested. I guess other factors overcame their fanatical Trump-hatred.

Why do you have a problem with this, Ron?

Is it not better for the country that not all talent (and consequentially power) is concentrated at Harvard and among its graduates?

I am with Jack Hanson. There is too much doom and gloom. Experience has shown that Jack is right. And everyone from Derbyshire on down has been wrong. Are you sure that the hallucinating is attributable to Jack?

Can you give us a list? Or are you just referring to the election outcome? Yeah, he got that 50/50 proposition right, but I seem to remember talk of landslides, which was not right. Also, if I remember, he was on board with the "Hillary has Parkinsons" theory, which I think we can all safely say now was bogus. This is not to mention the "things fall apart" post from a few days ago, revealing the gimp mask Jack himself so carefully hides.

DACA continues, Australian refugee resettlement continues (despite Trump's phone call), Syrian refugees are coming over. I know Trump is busy, but just look at how his time is taken up--any president's schedule is dominated now by "security"--councils, briefings, staffing decisions... If Trump weren't winging it, he might just recognize that 50 missiles attack is the likely outcome when war councils are called for every little news item.

The border wall and more broadly immigration are going to take 110% determination or they'll get undermined. I don't see "governing based on my little girl's tears" as a strategy likely to see things through to the end. Time will tell.

Interesting. What do you think it means?
I suspect going back and reading and listening to Parscale interviews, and what he said about Jared would be most illuminating. When he spoke at Harvard, he spoke more in tech mode, so that would be a good place to start.
I want to be fair to Kushner, because I truly may have forgotten something, but my sense was that while he got praised, nothing specific was pointed to. And I’m not aware of Kushner being asked tech, or any questions, about the operation; no sense there that he’s the go-to guy for anything like this.

Again, I want to be fair: I really do have a bad memory. I read and listened to every single Parscale piece or interview because I found it, utterly, *utterly*, fascinating, but I got the impression, an overall sense, that despite Parscale saying Kushner was fundamental, that Kushner’s big role was really more about believing in Parscale and giving him wide breadth. No small thing by the way: God knows Hillary Clinton didn’t have a Brad Parscale on her team and if he’d landed on their laps, they’d been at a loss with what to do with him.

Related, last I checked, Parscale had been dimished at “American First” policies. I hope that’s wrong. But in any event, this man simply has not gotten his due. Democrats preferred hearing about how nefarious forces, the same ones that our ruling class just happens to want to war with for years, robbed them of the election than that of Parscale’s genius machinations.

Cernovich intimates been sitting on this story, dropped the Rice story first for credibility... McMaster and Patreus manipulated intelligence, Kushner and Bannon were opposed. McMaster allies responsible for Bannon-Kushner feud stories.

The vast endowments of the best American universities (even the "public" state schools) are now encouraging the belief that they can just cut themselves loose from their state charters and become schools for the global (money) elite. So you're right there.

America was once revered around the world; I think that feeling has been lost, as far as the wealthiest globalists are concerned. Still, the best schools are here, for now anyway, so that's where they come. I don't think that the male Chinese students who come here for math, science and engineering believe one bit of the libtard crap that is served up, for instance.

The vast endowments of the best American universities (even the “public” state schools) are now encouraging the belief that they can just cut themselves loose from their state charters and become schools for the global (money) elite.

Status Striving Era. Your primary age little tykes’ Catholic schools in cities have had this strange new tolerance policy for the last 15 years of taking in non-Catholics, but not at all tolerating, except a token inner-city kid or two, parents who can’t come up with at least $16,000 per year.
(I’m Catholic, so all too well aware, but I’d guess other denominations are similar based on various Protestant college tuition $$$, though Steve has intimated BYU hasn’t been corrupted. The more rural Catholic primary schools have not been corrupted.)

Interesting. What do you think it means?I suspect going back and reading and listening to Parscale interviews, and what he said about Jared would be most illuminating. When he spoke at Harvard, he spoke more in tech mode, so that would be a good place to start. I want to be fair to Kushner, because I truly may have forgotten something, but my sense was that while he got praised, nothing specific was pointed to. And I'm not aware of Kushner being asked tech, or any questions, about the operation; no sense there that he's the go-to guy for anything like this.

Again, I want to be fair: I really do have a bad memory. I read and listened to every single Parscale piece or interview because I found it, utterly, *utterly*, fascinating, but I got the impression, an overall sense, that despite Parscale saying Kushner was fundamental, that Kushner's big role was really more about believing in Parscale and giving him wide breadth. No small thing by the way: God knows Hillary Clinton didn't have a Brad Parscale on her team and if he'd landed on their laps, they'd been at a loss with what to do with him.

Related, last I checked, Parscale had been dimished at "American First" policies. I hope that's wrong. But in any event, this man simply has not gotten his due. Democrats preferred hearing about how nefarious forces, the same ones that our ruling class just happens to want to war with for years, robbed them of the election than that of Parscale's genius machinations.

Cernovich intimates been sitting on this story, dropped the Rice story first for credibility… McMaster and Patreus manipulated intelligence, Kushner and Bannon were opposed. McMaster allies responsible for Bannon-Kushner feud stories.

I honestly can't take 90% of the iSteve commentariat seriously anymore because its all people trying to out doom each other around here based on the flimsiest of pretexts.

There is no penalty for being wrong. Every bump in the road is GOODBYE AMERICA and then when the mushroom clouds don't appear they just stumble around until the next situation (unless they're patting themselves on the back about being the Secret Masters of Politics lmfao).

Trump probably realized he’d need dictatorial powers to drain the swamp. He also realized he’d need the same to stop immigration. Possibly he also realized he’d need to actually reverse much of the post-1965 immigration to MAGA. But he realized he has no power to do all these.

4d chess: like Skynet, he attacks Russia (probably sending nukes the way of China in the meantime), who in turn will destroy his enemies in DC, also NYC, LA and countless other big cities with their huge liberal and immigrant populations, maybe accomplishing the same for European countries, too. It will also make it easy for him to assume dictatorial powers.

The end result will be God Emperor Trump ruling over the ruins and a much whiter population.

I am with Jack Hanson. There is too much doom and gloom. Experience has shown that Jack is right. And everyone from Derbyshire on down has been wrong. Are you sure that the hallucinating is attributable to Jack?

These days I rarely read Counter Currents, but this Greg Johnson piece is good on the disappointment many on the alt-right felt after Trump’s neocon attack. I think the explanation he finds the most likely is quite plausible. It’s possible Trump never had a coherent philosophy, just always said the opposite of what Obama said or did – which would explain the contradiction why Trump kept warmongering regarding Iran. It’s also likely that simply Trump shot his mouth off when he criticized Obama’s weakness after his red line was broken during the press conference with King Abdullah, and of course he couldn’t backtrack his words later.

Lots of wealthy financiers and businessmen probably have bribed their child's way into an Ivy League education. So I assume a lot of elite journalists understood not to touch that issue. If you're an elite journalist that wants to stay an elite journalist, you have to be careful to not step on the toes of powerful people. If a journalist brought up the Kushner bribery issue, they'd risk getting all these oligarchs into the media spotlight.

Also, maybe a lot of insiders knew that Kushner was a globalist cuck. So they figured that if Trump somehow got elected, Kushner could push out the Alt-Right/nationalist types. However, if Kushner was politically damaged by this revelation and Trump still somehow got elected, Kushner would be too weak to have any leverage.

Johnny, are you really that naive and pure of heart??

As per your previous comment, everybody knows that Kushner is Jewish, that’s why he’s automatically assumed to have Machiavellied Trump into bombing Assad because, well, that’s what Jews do. The WHOLE Kushner brouhaha is about his semitism.

And now you somehow don’t get Unz’s “other factors”?

You’re playing me bro.

I thought the man spelled it out clearly enough – here, and in every 3rd word he’s written over the past few years – but I’ll help spell it out even simpler.

“I, Ronald “RKU” Unz, am not one of THOSE Jews. I am a good Jew. A Jew who finds his face, name, personality and proclivities ugly and who will OurDamnedSpot! it by spitting at every imaginary mirror he imagines passing in the shade of a fellow Hebe. I. See. Jewish. Nepotism. Everywhere. Oh, and I weep for wrongly done Palestinian youth too. Woe, unto we goyim – i said WE GOYIM – to see the sadness in the face of one rock throwing little Mooslem boy. Be still my goiyishe heart…”

I’ve just saved you the trouble of having to read Ron’z future comments. That’ll be a dollar per post and $10 for saving you the trouble of having to purchase a sticky copy of portnoy’s complaint on Amazon, now that you know that you can read Portnoy’s Therapeutic Soliloquy online for free should the proverse mode strike you.

I am with Jack Hanson. There is too much doom and gloom. Experience has shown that Jack is right. And everyone from Derbyshire on down has been wrong. Are you sure that the hallucinating is attributable to Jack?

Experience has shown that Jack is right.

Can you give us a list? Or are you just referring to the election outcome? Yeah, he got that 50/50 proposition right, but I seem to remember talk of landslides, which was not right. Also, if I remember, he was on board with the “Hillary has Parkinsons” theory, which I think we can all safely say now was bogus. This is not to mention the “things fall apart” post from a few days ago, revealing the gimp mask Jack himself so carefully hides.

DACA continues, Australian refugee resettlement continues (despite Trump’s phone call), Syrian refugees are coming over. I know Trump is busy, but just look at how his time is taken up–any president’s schedule is dominated now by “security”–councils, briefings, staffing decisions… If Trump weren’t winging it, he might just recognize that 50 missiles attack is the likely outcome when war councils are called for every little news item.

The border wall and more broadly immigration are going to take 110% determination or they’ll get undermined. I don’t see “governing based on my little girl’s tears” as a strategy likely to see things through to the end. Time will tell.

You really have to admire your uninhibited, unrestricted and unqualified embrace of pessimism. You are at the end of the spectrum. Congratulations.

Trumps victory was a 50/50 proposition? That has to be the most pathetic analysis anyone can construct. In fact, analysis is too generous a term for your dismissal. You and the rest of the Eeyore chorus were certain Trump would lose. It was not 50/50 in your expressions of what surely would befall us. 1/99 would be a long shot in your mind. WE ARE DOOMED! to invoke your patron saint. And your dismal assessment had what purpose? To drain the morale of Trump supporters and get them to stay home on election day? Well it is just too damned bad for you that Trump won, isn't it?

I used to think people like you would get off your ass and help, if push came to shove. But I am sure I was wrong. You would prefer to wallow in self pity about how screwed you are, and life is unfair, and there is no hope at all for anything - and so you will just sit this out.

I suppose I should be glad you are not actively working against the rest of us.

These days I rarely read Counter Currents, but this Greg Johnson piece is good on the disappointment many on the alt-right felt after Trump's neocon attack. I think the explanation he finds the most likely is quite plausible. It's possible Trump never had a coherent philosophy, just always said the opposite of what Obama said or did - which would explain the contradiction why Trump kept warmongering regarding Iran. It's also likely that simply Trump shot his mouth off when he criticized Obama's weakness after his red line was broken during the press conference with King Abdullah, and of course he couldn't backtrack his words later.

Yeah cause eight years of “Not Obama” was a stellar strategy.

You’re going to have to pardon my incredulity at niche bloggers with little ability to get together a strategy for success declaring grandly that Trump is just bumbling.

Can you give us a list? Or are you just referring to the election outcome? Yeah, he got that 50/50 proposition right, but I seem to remember talk of landslides, which was not right. Also, if I remember, he was on board with the "Hillary has Parkinsons" theory, which I think we can all safely say now was bogus. This is not to mention the "things fall apart" post from a few days ago, revealing the gimp mask Jack himself so carefully hides.

DACA continues, Australian refugee resettlement continues (despite Trump's phone call), Syrian refugees are coming over. I know Trump is busy, but just look at how his time is taken up--any president's schedule is dominated now by "security"--councils, briefings, staffing decisions... If Trump weren't winging it, he might just recognize that 50 missiles attack is the likely outcome when war councils are called for every little news item.

The border wall and more broadly immigration are going to take 110% determination or they'll get undermined. I don't see "governing based on my little girl's tears" as a strategy likely to see things through to the end. Time will tell.

You really have to admire your uninhibited, unrestricted and unqualified embrace of pessimism. You are at the end of the spectrum. Congratulations.

Trumps victory was a 50/50 proposition? That has to be the most pathetic analysis anyone can construct. In fact, analysis is too generous a term for your dismissal. You and the rest of the Eeyore chorus were certain Trump would lose. It was not 50/50 in your expressions of what surely would befall us. 1/99 would be a long shot in your mind. WE ARE DOOMED! to invoke your patron saint. And your dismal assessment had what purpose? To drain the morale of Trump supporters and get them to stay home on election day? Well it is just too damned bad for you that Trump won, isn’t it?

I used to think people like you would get off your ass and help, if push came to shove. But I am sure I was wrong. You would prefer to wallow in self pity about how screwed you are, and life is unfair, and there is no hope at all for anything – and so you will just sit this out.

I suppose I should be glad you are not actively working against the rest of us.

In fact, analysis is too generous a term for your dismissal. You and the rest of the Eeyore chorus were certain Trump would lose. It was not 50/50 in your expressions of what surely would befall us. 1/99 would be a long shot in your mind. WE ARE DOOMED! to invoke your patron saint.

I'm not Chrisonymous, but for the record, while I thought at the time a Clinton victory was more likely (and, admit it, Trump won by a razor thing margin in a those swing states, there was no monster vote), I put some money betting for a Trump victory, because I thought the 1:5 odds for his victory were too low. You can check the comments, the day before the election I endorsed Trump among the commenters with something like "vote for him guys, it's not only about saving Western Civilization, but making me money."

You really have to admire your uninhibited, unrestricted and unqualified embrace of pessimism. You are at the end of the spectrum. Congratulations.

Trumps victory was a 50/50 proposition? That has to be the most pathetic analysis anyone can construct. In fact, analysis is too generous a term for your dismissal. You and the rest of the Eeyore chorus were certain Trump would lose. It was not 50/50 in your expressions of what surely would befall us. 1/99 would be a long shot in your mind. WE ARE DOOMED! to invoke your patron saint. And your dismal assessment had what purpose? To drain the morale of Trump supporters and get them to stay home on election day? Well it is just too damned bad for you that Trump won, isn't it?

I used to think people like you would get off your ass and help, if push came to shove. But I am sure I was wrong. You would prefer to wallow in self pity about how screwed you are, and life is unfair, and there is no hope at all for anything - and so you will just sit this out.

I suppose I should be glad you are not actively working against the rest of us.

But they you are working against us, aren't you?

In fact, analysis is too generous a term for your dismissal. You and the rest of the Eeyore chorus were certain Trump would lose. It was not 50/50 in your expressions of what surely would befall us. 1/99 would be a long shot in your mind. WE ARE DOOMED! to invoke your patron saint.

I’m not Chrisonymous, but for the record, while I thought at the time a Clinton victory was more likely (and, admit it, Trump won by a razor thing margin in a those swing states, there was no monster vote), I put some money betting for a Trump victory, because I thought the 1:5 odds for his victory were too low. You can check the comments, the day before the election I endorsed Trump among the commenters with something like “vote for him guys, it’s not only about saving Western Civilization, but making me money.”

As I'm to the right of Spencer (a position I share with thousands of activists, approximated at TheRightStuff.biz), my question would be, "how is our cause helped if Miller does not avow Spencer?

And it must come to that if America is to become great again, for it was made great as a White offshoot of Western Europe, and fell from greatness through anti-White animus, the latter instigated in no small part by Jews.

Spencer represents the advocacy of ethnic cleansing and racial superiority.

If Miller avowed Spencer he would be out of the White House. If Trump avows Spencer, he will be out of the White House.

I’ve heard leading neocons like Daniel Pipes state that an EMP could lead to the death of up to 90% of Americans. That number comes from the Congressional EMP Commission and has been used by Pipes and others to support the arming of unsavory groups in Syria. Here’s an article that Pipes mentioned on his twitter feed:

Which to me sounds like a means of ginning up american resolve to oppose Iran. One or two nuclear weapons is not really much of a threat to the U.S., unless these dire claims about EMP are true. By the way, I looked in the report you mentioned, which I believe is this:

I didn't find any such claim about EMP leading to the deaths of up to 90% of Americans. Of course, I didn't read the whole thing, but I searched keywords such as "kill", "killed", "death", "casualty", etc.. If you can find the claim, please let me know.

The fact that people like Frank Gaffney are torqued up about the topic does not especially alarm me. Gaffney has the reputation (perhaps not entirely justified) of being something of a crank.

EMP is a potentially damaging phenomenon, and we ought to be doing a few things to harden the electrical grid against it - against the possibility of a solar event, if for no other reason. But the notion that it levels the playing field between small nations like Iran and North Korea and us seems ludicrous to me. In particular, it would not shield them from retaliation. Strategic nuclear forces are specifically designed to withstand EMP, at least better than anything else is, and we would probably still have enough of them left to turn any such attacker into a wasteland of smoking craters.

I stand by my assertion that wild claims about Iran or North Korea being able to destroy us with a single nuclear weapon are, essentially, tendentious bullshit.

Just to be clear, I didn’t say that up to 90% of Americans would die in an EMP attack. I was pointing out that top neocons are saying that and using that scenario to justify the arming of groups sympathetic to al Qaeda.

Note that North Korea may have a “super-EMP” weapon and that they have 2 satellites orbit. Iran also launches satellites. Agree with you that the threat of retaliation makes such an attack unlikely, but their are ways to avoid attribution. Giving super-EMP to terrorists, for example.

Here’s another scenario: Dear Leader diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, given 2 months to live. He remembers that American prostitute that snickered at the size of his manhood and decides to detonate super-EMP over U.S., just for fun.

Agree with you on Frank Gaffney.

Regarding Iran, some people think they have 4 nuclear weapons (per Yossef Bodansky).

Regarding 90% figure in Congressional EMP Commission report, I couldn’t find it either. Peter Pry served in that commission and he says it’s in the report, that’s what I relied on. Skimmed thru the report quickly, might have missed it.

Contact Steve Sailer

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